Phillips Energy Partners, LLC v. Milton Crow Ltd. Partnership

166 So. 3d 428, 2015 La. App. LEXIS 990, 2015 WL 2409345
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 20, 2015
DocketNo. 49,791-CA
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 166 So. 3d 428 (Phillips Energy Partners, LLC v. Milton Crow Ltd. Partnership) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Phillips Energy Partners, LLC v. Milton Crow Ltd. Partnership, 166 So. 3d 428, 2015 La. App. LEXIS 990, 2015 WL 2409345 (La. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

GARRETT, J.

|/The defendants, Milton Crow Limited Partnership and Livingstone, LLC (collectively, “C-L”), appeal from a trial court judgment granting the plaintiff, Phillips Energy Partners, LLC (“PEP”), a right of passage across their estates and denying the defendants’ motion for new trial. For the following reasons, we affirm in part and reverse in part the trial court judgment and remand for further proceedings.

FACTS

In May 2008, PEP purchased a 160-acre tract in DeSoto Parish for mineral development. The property is an enclosed estate with no access to a public road. Donald Warren Crow controls the Milton Crow Partnership with his three sisters. Livingstone, LLC, is controlled by Crow’s brother-in-law, Will Livingstone. C-L owns a 1,100 acre tract, used as a timber plantation, to the west of the PEP property. There is a house on the property, but neither the Crows nor the Livingstones live on the tract.

Chesapeake Energy (“Chesapeake”) drilled several gas wells on the C-L and PEP properties with plans to drill additional wells. In order to access the wells on both properties, Chesapeake entered into an agreement with C-L for a road through the middle of their property to connect with the Keithville-Keatchie Road, which is a public road.1 C-L directed [431]*431where the Chesapeake road would be located. This road also extended onto the PEP property.

|2PEP dug several ponds on its land in order to sell water for hydraulic fracturing. This work cost more than $900,000. The workers used the Chesapeake road to access the PEP property, until C-L objected in late 2010 or early 2011. Landowners who live on the property to the east allowed PEP to construct a temporary road to complete the project. However, they did not want PEP to have a permanent road through their land, where they lived and which would connect with streets in a residential subdivision. Efforts by PEP to obtain a contractual right of passage agreement across the property of CL were unsuccessful.

On July 14, 2011, PEP filed suit against C-L to obtain a right of passage, preferably over the Chesapeake road. PEP claimed a right of passage over C-L’s property to the nearest public road. In its answer, C-L claimed that the nearest public road was to the east, and PEP was not entitled to claim a right of passage over the C-L property. C-L also claimed that no “exceptional circumstances” existed to support a right of passage over its property. In response to C-L’s position, PEP amended the petition to add all the property owners to the east, north, and northwest.2 PEP alleged that the property to the east frequently flooded and constituted wetland under federal law and again sought a right of passage over the C-L property. The various additional defendants filed answers objecting to a road over their properties and basically aligned themselves with PEP.

|sThe case was tried May 28-29, 2013. The parties agreed that the ability of PEP to pay for a road was not an issue. Other stipulations included the facts that Rosemary Lane is a public road, the PEP tract is land-locked, and the PEP tract did not become enclosed as a result of a voluntary act or omission of PEP or its ancestors-in-title.3 The evidence focused on three proposed routes. (See the attached exhibit.) Route One, marked in red on the exhibit, on property to the east, connects to Rosemary Lane, a public road. This was the shortest route. Route Two, marked in blue, on C-L’s property to the west, goes along the northern border of the C-L tract before connecting with the existing Chesapeake road and ending at the Keithville-Keatchie Road. Routes One and Two would require construction of a roadway. Route Three, marked in green, is the existing Chesapeake road. PEP’s first choice was Route Three. The landowners to the east opposed Route One. C-L, of course, opposed both Routes Two and Three and maintained that the law dictated that the right of passage must be located on the shortest route to a public road. [432]*432Needless to say, this was a hotly contested trial. Pre-trial and post-trial briefs were filed and the matter was taken under advisement by the trial court.

On September 10, 2013, the trial court issued a written ruling establishing the right of passage on Route Three. The court found that environmental and economic issues associated with Routes One and Two disqualified them from consideration. It found that Route Three was already on an established road and was the least injurious of the proposed routes.

|4C-L filed a motion for further proceedings, which was summarily denied, urging that several issues were not addressed in the ruling. On December 30, 2013, the trial court signed a judgment, prepared by PEP, granting PEP a right of gratuitous passage along Route Three. All claims against the other defendants who owned property near the PEP tract were dismissed with prejudice. C-L then filed a motion for new trial, claiming that the judgment was not provided to their attorney prior to submission to the court, was contrary to the law and evidence, and contained numerous form and substance issues.

On March 10, 2014, a hearing was held on the motion for new trial. The judgment contained what purported to be the legal description of the servitude area. The trial court agreed to correct the legal description of the servitude. The parties and the court also agreed to delete the word “gratuitous” regarding the servitude.4 C-L contended that La. C.C. art. 689 requires the owner of the enclosed estate to indemnify the owner of the ser-vient estate for damages associated with the right of passage. It requested that the trial court consider that issue. The trial court found that the issue of damages had not been previously raised and there was nothing in the record to consider. The court opined that the issue was more properly the subject of a separate lawsuit.

On June 9, 2014, the trial court signed an amended judgment deleting the word “gratuitous” and including an amended legal description of the servitude. The motion for new trial was otherwise denied. C-L appealed.

|aSERVITUDE OF PASSAGE

C-L raises several assignments of error objecting to the placement of the servitude of passage on its property at the location of Route Three. C-L contends that the trial court erred in its findings that the CL tract owed the PEP property a right of passage and that exceptional circumstances existed permitting deviation from the “shortest route” rule. C-L maintains that the trial court should not have considered the cost of constructing a road on Route One since PEP agreed prior to trial that ability to pay would not be at issue. C-L also asserts that the trial court erred in considering convenience to PEP and which route would be least injurious in determining which estate owed the servitude of passage.

Standard of Review

C-L claims that the trial court erred in its application of the law to such an extent that the manifest error standard of review is no longer applicable and this court should conduct a de novo review. We reject this argument and find that the manifest error standard of review is applicable. C-L’s argument is that the trial court committed legal error when it did not locate the servitude on the shortest route. As explained below, some situa[433]*433tions present exceptional circumstances warranting a deviation from the general rule.

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Bluebook (online)
166 So. 3d 428, 2015 La. App. LEXIS 990, 2015 WL 2409345, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/phillips-energy-partners-llc-v-milton-crow-ltd-partnership-lactapp-2015.